Anneshia Hardy | The Hardy Exchange
As I scrolled through LinkedIn the other day, I was struck—not gently, not softly, but with the sharp and undeniable weight of truth, by the words: “I am tired of watching folks play in our face.” They didn’t feel like just words. They felt like a mirror held up to my own spirit, reflecting back an exhaustion that I know too well. An exhaustion that stretches far beyond the confines of my own life, reaching deep into the collective experience of my people. These words, written by Jenice Fountain, gave voice to a frustration that so many of us share. It wasn’t just her words, it was the weight behind them. The exhaustion of witnessing the same tired patterns of false solutions and performative care repackaged as progress. The heartbreak of watching my people being told, again and again, to fix themselves while the systems that create their struggles remain intact.
There is a profound cruelty and nasty work in offering broken solutions to broken systems, and then blaming the people who suffer under them for their continued pain.
"We already tried teaching financial readiness to folks without finances. We already told hungry folks about budgeting for groceries. We already told barefoot foots to use their bootstraps. We told folks without gas or transportation that life would be better if they just went to work. We told folks with unstable housing to keep their kids inside and at the school house with folks that struggle to see their worth."
These solutions are not solutions at all. They are distractions. They are designed to placate, to give the appearance of care without the substance of it, and to maintain the machinery of a society built on exploitation and dehumanization. These offerings are not new. They have always been with us, just as the systems of oppression that created them have always been with us. They are meant to teach us compliance, to keep us navigating within the boundaries of a system that depends on our suffering to function. These solutions are not born of love, nor of care, but of fear.
Fear that we might one day refuse to play this game at all.
My people deserve more than the empty promises of programs that ask us to prove our worth before meeting our needs. My people deserve real care that does not ask questions, that does not make demands, that does not require us to contort ourselves to fit into systems that were never designed to hold us.
Just to clarify, care, as I understand it, is not difficult. It shouldn't have to be radical. It is only radical in a society that has forgotten what it means to truly love its people. Real care means giving people what they need without condition. Real care means giving cash directly to those who need it, not as charity, not as a reward, but as an act of justice that recognizes their inherent dignity. It means providing housing, food, childcare, and healthcare, not as privileges to be earned but as fundamental rights that belong to all. These are not acts of kindness, they are acts of humanity. They are acts of love, not the sentimental kind, but the kind that insists on justice, the kind that refuses to let suffering go unanswered.
Like so many before her, Jenice has the courage to name it plainly: we are tired. I have learned that this type of exhaustiion is not merely a state of being. It is a truth-teller. It forces us to confront what is unsustainable, what is intolerable, and what must be changed. This tiredness, this collective weariness that she names so passionately, is not a weakness. It is a reckoning. It is the body and spirit saying, enough.
But the danger of being tired is that it can also seduce us into despair. It can convince us that the work is too great, that the systems are too entrenched, that liberation is beyond our grasp. This is the lie that oppression tells, over and over again, that nothing will change, that nothing can change. It is the same lie that asks us to accept broken programs and mimicry as the best we can hope for. And yet, even in our exhaustion, there is a spark. There is always a spark. That is what Jenice’s words remind me of, that beneath the tiredness, there is still a fire. There is still the possibility, the inevitability, of rising up. Rising up does not mean accepting what we have been given. It means demanding more. It means refusing to play by rules that were never meant to include us. It means creating new rules, new systems, new ways of being that honor our dignity and our humanity.
"Liberation will not come from the systems that oppress us. It will not come from those who benefit from our suffering. Liberation must be claimed, built, imagined by those who refuse to accept the world as it is. It is work that demands everything of us, but it is also work that gives life back to us."
-Anneshia Hardy
I share in Jenice’s tiredness, but I also share in her hope. Hope that is not in the systems that have failed us, but in the power of our people to rise, to demand what we deserve. Because we have always been the ones to build liberation. We have always been the ones to dream and to reimagine it into being.
And we will do it again.
About the Author
Anneshia Hardy is a narrative strategist, scholar-activist, and social impact entrepreneur committed to leveraging storytelling and messaging for transformative social change. As Executive Director of grassroots communications and media advocacy organizations, Alabama Values and Alabama Values Progress, she leads efforts to strengthen the pro-democracy movement in Alabama and across the South through strategic messaging and digital strategies.
Co-founder of Blackyard LLC, Anneshia equips changemakers to amplify their impact in marginalized communities. With over a decade of experience, she has conducted narrative and messaging trainings for organizations like the NAACP and the Obama Foundation. Anneshia has also shaped strategies for landmark voting rights cases, including Allen v. Milligan. Rooted in the belief that culturally relevant narratives can drive equity and inspire action, she bridges academic insight and real-world advocacy to create lasting change.